mylittlechateau

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Tag Archives: UK

Living/Studying in the UK update

15 Tuesday Oct 2019

Posted by mylittlechateau in Living Room - Happenings in life

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Cardiff University, Hamilton, student, UK, visa

Hello! It’s been a month since we’ve left Malaysia and moved to the UK for our studies and i suppose this would be a good time for an update. First and foremost, I thank God for seeing us through this move, settling down and getting a rhythm together. It was a whole adventure, figuring out banks, phone numbers, visa’s, employment and so on. I’m also glad that i’m doing this with my husband. I think back to my undergrad and doing that by myself and i’m in awe at myself, but i’m also glad i don’t have to do it alone this time. There’s someone to share the burden with, awww that’s marriage for you right? I’m also too old to have the energy to do it by myself so there’s that.
So i shall not bore you with the details, but here’s some highlights:
1. Hamilton – watching it was amazing, and i think really apt because it reminded me not to throw away ‘my shot’

2. Visa was supposedly missing – When i initially registered for my visa, i accidentally put the collection point as the post office instead of the university, this meant that i had to walk 40 minutes just to get to the post office (and we did this three times in total, read more to find out why). When we first got there, we were told that it had not arrived, so we were told to come back on saturday (we went on a thursday). We did and were told that it was still not there, visibly upset, the postman suggested to email Home office. I did and was told that they could not help me with the retrieval of my BRP (biometric residence permit, it’s a card you need as a visa holder). This made me even more anxious. Zech and I prayed constantly about it and my family was praying about it too. Then suddenly one day, it occurred to zech that they could have filed it under the wrong alphabet because that was what happened in his case. We went to the post office and by the grace of God there was a chinese man that helped me with it, immediately he saw the problem and located my BRP, it had arrived a month ago! He told me that he had a few Malaysian friends so he knew how Malaysian names worked. Isn’t it the grace of God that he was the one who served me? With that, i could finally get my student ID and we celebrated this blessing by using my student ID to get a discounted movie ticket to watch Downton Abbey.

3. Setting up a home – We live basically in the city centre and accessing shops is really convenient. I found out that a lot of the places i thought were just selling clothes had a home section, this seems to be a trend as Primark, Zara and H&M had it (the ones i went to so far). For me this is a novelty, but by far the cheapest place is Wilko. Thank God for them as we got a lot of our stuff there and it was budget friendly. This was also where i had to think about the practicality of things. Do i really need that 20litre pot? How often am i going to use it, can i survive with what i already had? All questions for someone setting up a home in a new place. It took us about 2 days to really get the basic stuff down. Oh, thank God for poundland too. Other than just buying stuff to set up our home, there’s also keeping it clean, yeah the chores. I’m still amazed at home much work we need to put into keeping a small place clean. It doesn’t help that the kitchen is used a lot, but it really makes me think about how big of a house we really want in the future. (This is why they invented the roomba and robots)

4. Finding a church – We had a few church recommendations from zech’s cell mentor’s daughter who had studied in cardiff previously. We set out to check those churches out and it reminded me of three years ago when i was doing the same thing in Malaysia. It really brought memories (good ones) back and it made me want to do my best to find a church that we could feel at home with. One of the things we prayed for before coming was to find a church to serve in, and i think we might have found one in Vineyard Church Cardiff.

5. Volunteering gig – The very first thing that i picked up from the orientation was, experience gets you jobs, not a paper. It’s been a long time since i’ve done anything related to museums and i was in dire need of some volunteering experience. Prior to orientation, there was an advertisement for a volunteering position at the National Museum of Wales cardiff. It was 10 minutes away from where i lived, a reputable museum and from the job scope, i would be able to put into practice everything that i learned (okay, maybe not everything, but a lot of it). I really wanted this gig, but i didn’t hear back after a week and a half, so i emailed the person in charge and was given an interview slot! Come the interview date and i felt that i messed it up, or at least i didn’t say what i wanted to say, to make my pitch. That irked me the whole day and i shared my concerns with zech and my mom. We prayed about it and halfway through the night while i was doing my reading, i had the inspiration to write a thank you letter. I did a little research about thank you letters and found out that i could include things i thought i should have in the interview, it also allowed me to show that i was paying attention during the interview and to highlight my strengths. It was an inspiration from God honestly because i don’t think i would have thought to do so. So i did, and after that, i felt peace. God also led me to see that my hope should be in Him and not this one gig. I had mistakenly believed that my future hung on getting this gig instead of on God. All that time i had believed that this would allow me to get the future i wanted, but in reality, i had set my sights too low when i should have been looking up to God for help for the big picture. So that week after was just a week of praying, believing but still focusing on God. It was tricky because it’s a good position, but yet i knew that it wasn’t everything. Fast forward to this week, i got an email saying that i got the volunteering gig! i’m excited, thankful and so happy. God is ever faithful.

So i hope you see the thread here, this whole journey so far is a lot of depending on God, praying and praying. It’s been amazing so far and i can’t wait to see what happens next!

England, i’ll be back- places i wish to visit

07 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by mylittlechateau in The stables - Travelling

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anne boleyn, baker street, bath, chatsworth house, england, hampton court palace, jane austin museum, kensington palace, kiera knightly, king henry the 8th, London, London 2012, places to visit in the UK, pride and prejudice, queen victoria, sherlock, sherlock BBC, spa, tourist destinations, tower of london, UK, UK guide

I’ve been to England 3 times and still after all this time i have not completed it. I know it’s impossible even for a local to experience everything, but the thing is, i really, honestly want to go to these places, was so close but didn’t get to go in the end. So these are the places that i would like to visit if i ever get a chance to go back to England. I’ll be writing about the personal reason i want to visit these places. If you’re in the UK for the London 2012 olympics and want to travel around too, please feel free to get some inspiration here. Hope it helps.

1. Hampton court palace.

website: http://www.hrp.org.uk/hamptoncourtpalace/

really i was so close, so so close to visiting this palace, i think they were having a special Henry the 8th exhibition at that time too, but no one wanted to accompany me, note to self, it’s UK gurl, they speak english, you can’t possible lose your way, just go by yourself next time. Personally i want to visit this place because of the Tudors, yeah, so cliché but it’s true.

2. Kensington Palace

website: http://www.hrp.org.uk/KensingtonPalace/

I’m on a palace roll here, but i think one thing that is unique to the UK is its palaces, the history and the distinctive monarch that lived there. Here’s it’s Queen Victoria. I’m draw into the love story between Albert and Victoria, i love the movie “The young victoria”, made me cry ok, just how pure the love between them was.

3. Tower of London

Website: http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/

The place anne Boleyn was executed, the two princes disappeared and Jim Moriarty (Sherlock BBC, 2012) drew a smiley face to taunt Sherlock. How close was i to visiting this place? i was outside, literally and could not visit it because of the price of the ticket. Yes it’s annoying, i’d just like to tour the place and see the royal jewels honestly.

4. Chatsworth House

website: http://www.chatsworth.org/

This place seems familiar? Well to help you out, think Kiera Knightly. If you haven’t already guessed it, this is one of the locations in Pride and Prejudice. This is Mr. Darcy’s house! Lovely isn’t it? They also filmed the movie “The Duchess” here, so kiera knightly filmed here twice. I’m a fan of period movies, if you haven’t guessed already. Really, i think i live in the past, i sure feel comfortable there. So i think the grounds are beautiful and it’ll be wonderful to visit this place and walk the same path the characters did.

5. Baker Street, the Sherlock Museum

website: http://www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk/

221 B, baker street, this address is legendary, it’s the home of a certain Sherlock Holmes. How close was i to this museum? I was on the same street, gosh, now i feel really terrible, to know that i was so close to seeing so many places but was held back by the lack of money or no company. Anyway, sorry, a self reflecting moment there. The picture above is the museum, now if you’ve watched the latest BBC series you’ll see that it’s obviously different. But i think this picture is the general idea fans have of this place. I saw pictures of the insides and even in the manga detective Conan, i really want to go buy some Sherlock stuff in there,

6. Bath

website:http://visitbath.co.uk/travel-and-maps/travelling-to-and-around-bath

Honestly, my parents told me that i’ve been here before, but i don’t remember a thing! maybe the baths, i remember some green water, but i was 5 at that time. Not the best time to visit a historically beautiful place. Clearly, you can see, this is a mark left by the romans who ruled the then Britannia. No one’s allowed to bathe in it of course, but you can drink the water, or go for a spa. Me, i just want to see the iconic building that you can see in the first picture, see the baths again of course and go to the jane Austin house museum.

7. Jane Austin House Museum

website: http://www.jane-austens-house-museum.org.uk/

I’m a big fan of pride and prejudice, so this place will really be very special. I got to know about it when a senior of mine visited the museum and took pictures, from then on, i set my mind on it. Yes i’ll definitely make a great effort to visit this place. For now i’ll just have to be satisfied with the virtual tour. But for Jane Austin fans, this is a must if you’re in bath.

Alright, for now i guess that’ll be all. Where do i get the money to fund this? No idea, but if there is a will, there is a way!

[note: i’ll update this post when i get to know more places or remember some other places that i want to visit, but it slips my mind at the moment.]
update: I just found out what this place was called…..it’s…

 

8. Stourhead

look familliar? well think pride and prejudice and if i’m not wrong, the dutchess. Yess i’m so happy to have found the place!

website: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stourhead/

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